More caution, awareness at wrestling meets

As Hauppauge wrestler Nick Mauriello continues his recovery from Lemierre's syndrome and MRSA, the wrestling community is stressing good hygiene.

At the Nassau championships/state qualifier Saturday at Hofstra, it was business as usual for a high-level meet.

During the weigh-in, licensed physicians were present to do skin checks of the athletes. (Not necessarily so at smaller meets.) If an athlete showed a blemish of any sort, he was required to turn in a doctor's note clearing him to compete.

Increased caution, however, is not foolproof: The Mauriello case is particularly concerning because nobody knows when and where the 16-year-old contracted the infection.

"For anyone to say how it came about would strictly be speculation and guessing," Nassau wrestling coordinator Ed Ramirez said. "It's very difficult to pinpoint where somebody contracts MRSA or ringworm. And rather than focus on where he got it from, I think the emphasis should be on how to prevent it."

Ramirez said Nassau has not "changed anything that we have done in the past." Each of the six mats at Saturday's tournament was cleaned after every round or if an official suggested an extra cleansing mid-round. Ramirez said he encouraged the coaches to tell their athletes to shower after each bout. At Hofstra, there were ample shower stalls to accommodate the wrestlers.

"Not a whole lot has changed, just that there is more awareness that everything has to be clean," Oceanside assistant coach Steve Candela said.

Candela was among the crew of coaches who mopped the mats between rounds. Each mat-cleaner used a wide, industrial-size mop dipped in disinfectant. Bottles of Purell and extra bottles of disinfectant were present at each of the six scorer's tables.

Candela says the Oceanside staff cleans its practice mats before and after each practice. Before Mauriello's illness, they disinfected the mats before practice. "The athletic directors are really taking added precautions about being clean," Candela said.

At Plainedge, each wrestler is required to shower at school after practice. That policy was instituted long before the recent health scare. "To be honest, we haven't done anything extra because we have always been good about it," Plainedge coach Rob Shaver said.

Shaver said the Plainedge athletic department added an extra safety measure before the season. Each student-athlete was given one red and one gray practice T-shirt. Every other day, the school washes the shirts to ensure consistently clean attire. Outside of a minor staph infection a few years ago, Shaver said his athletes have not caught any serious germ or hygiene-related ailments. Like the rest of his colleagues, he is preaching prevention to his wrestlers.

"It's just something that got out of control for whatever reason," Shaver said.

Meanwhile, at the CHSAA state tournament at Chaminade, the mats were cleaned before matches started and again after the quarterfinal round. After weigh-ins, every wrestler had the customary skin check performed by the referees and Chaminade trainer Mike Moran.

Moran said one wrestler without a doctor's note had a questionable mark on his skin. He was not permitted to compete.

"We've been watching the news the same as everyone else," Moran said. "You've got to be diligent, but there's only so much you can do.''

Moran estimated that there are 15 shower heads in the school's locker room, and that "they built this facility to hold events like this."